Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce The Big Apple, a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) is known to many for its traffic delays. The BQE has been called “Better Quickly Exit” by at least 2009. The nickname probably originated with traffic reporters on the all-news radio stations WCBS and WINS.

Wikipedia: Interstate 278Brooklyn–Queens Expressway
At this interchange, I-278 heads north onto the six-lane Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, passing through urban neighborhoods near downtown Brooklyn on a depressed alignment. The next interchange the highway reaches serves Atlantic Avenue. After Atlantic Avenue, the road runs along the East River harbor in downtown Brooklyn/Brooklyn Heights and is partially covered to create the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I-278, at this point maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation, makes a sharp turn to the east away from the East River and comes to an interchange serving the Brooklyn Bridge and Cadman Plaza. The freeway continues on an elevated alignment and makes a turn southeast as it comes to ramps accessing the Manhattan Bridge. The highway becomes state maintained again and reaches at an exit serving Tillary Street and Flushing Avenue. At this point, the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway continues east through residential areas and turns northeast upon coming to the Wythe Avenue/Kent Avenue exit. The road passes through the Williamsburg neighborhood on a depressed alignment, reaching an interchange that serves the Williamsburg Bridge, with an exit at Metropolitan Avenue a short distance later. I-278 becomes elevated again as it passes through more neighborhoods and comes to the interchange with Humboldt Street/McGuinness Boulevard. The Brooklyn–Queens Expressway enters more industrial areas as it comes to Meeker Avenue/Morgan Avenue.

NYC ParksBrooklyn-Queens Expressway
11.7 miles
The first of its kind in New York City, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway differed from the City’s parkways in that it was built to accommodate both commercial and non-commercial traffic. Part of a massive program to expand New York’s transportation infrastructure, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, or BQE, stretches 11.7 miles from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel near the Red Hook section of Brooklyn to the Grand Central Parkway in Queens. The BQE was intended not only to relieve congestion on local streets but also to aid industry and business by shortening transportation time between the boroughs.
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In 1958, the BQE was designated part of the federal highway system, and became known also as Interstate 278. As part of the federal interstate highway system, the BQE was eligible to receive 90 percent federal funding. As its appellation implies, the road was to have connected with Interstate 78, which terminates in Jersey City, New Jersey, but the project was never completed and today Interstate 278 ends unceremoniously at U.S. 1 in the corridor between the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike. The final section of the BQE in Brooklyn, around the Navy Yard, was completed in 1960.